1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an operating method of a vacuum processing system including two or more of processing units for processing wafers and a transferring unit for carrying the wafers wherein the wafers are processed using at least two or more of the processing units; and a vacuum processing system therefor.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A prior art relating to a system including processing chambers connected to a carrying chamber, for example, disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 133532/1988, is characterized in that in a normal operating state, different wafers can be simultaneously carried into and processed in separate processing chambers or each wafer is sequentially carried into and processed in two or more of the processing chambers.
Another prior art relating to a method of operating a processing system, for example, disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 274746/1991, is characterized in that in operation of simultaneously performing processing steps along two routes, if a processing chamber contained in one route undergoes a maintenance work, processing chambers contained in the other route are temporarily used for both the processing steps along the two routes.